A. Field of the Invention
This invention is related to glass melting furnaces and more specifically to glass melting furnaces for the manufacture of glass containers or flat glass, entirely built with refractory concrete.
B. Description of the Related Art
The conventional design of furnaces for the glass production includes the use of masonry, that is to say, the use of bricks and blocks assembled using mortar and/or cement to build each one of the sections that constitute the unit. These refractory materials are chosen in order to attain an useful life of at least 12 years before requiring a total reconstruction.
The repairing of conventional furnaces used to produce glass, has been traditionally developed, by replacing the damaged or worn-out sections, using new bricks or blocks, incorporating them to the furnace's sections using mortar and/or cement.
However, when refractory concretes appeared, the repairing of furnace's sections was simplified because now it is only needed to remove the refractory bricks or blocks from the affected areas and to fill in these areas directly with refractory cement, being not required to place refractory bricks.
Examples of refractory cements for glass melting furnaces, are described in the U.S. Pat. No. 7,176,153 of Anderson, for an alumina, zirconium and silica refractory system that, as it is set forth in the said patent, can be used to produce blocks or can be used directly in a worn-out portion of the furnace; U.S. Pat. No. 6,313,057 of Brown et al, for a melted silica refractory material made up of granulated quartz, that contains a calcium oxide binder; U.S. Pat. No. 6,158,248 of Beppu, for a melted cast refractory of alumina, zirconium and silica; U.S. Pat. No. 6,554,058 among others.
Nevertheless, all these refractory cements have been used only to manufacture blocks and for repairing worn-out areas of furnace's sections.
This invention considers the design of a furnace with sections entirely built with refractory concretes that are total and hermetically joined forming a monolithic furnace. The achieved benefits hereof are the following: higher airtightness that improves the thermal efficiency, thus saving fuel; more durability of critical areas due to a reduction in the chemical erosion and corrosion, as a result of the absence of joints among the structural components. It is possible to achieve an important reduction in construction time due to the design of large elements, because the sections are directly shaped at the construction site, likewise, an important reduction is achieved in the warm-up and the operation startup time.